Fennec: I gotta know; how many women did you actually know growing up? Because there can't have been many on Clone Island.
Boba: There weren't. But I did know one.
Boba: There weren't. But I did know one.
This Place Was Home is a Slice of Life fancomic set in the Star Wars universe written and illustrated by ND Stevenson (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power).
While it is inspired by The Book of Boba Fett, the comic primarily focuses on a core trio of Prequel-Era characters from Attack of the Clones: Jango Fett, Zam Wesell, and Boba Fett as they grow closer on Kamino. Both "loose with Star Wars lore [and] exhaustively researched", the comic explores themes of isolation, gender identity, and found family.
This Place Was Home contains examples of:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Fennec Shand in this comic is noticeably more amiable than in the Disney shows where she tends to be haughty and The Comically Serious. Some of this could be attributed to her being drunk or high on weed, while other times it’s possibly a clue that she’s being impersonated by Zam Wesell.
- Adaptational Sexuality: While in canon Fennec has shown no explicit attraction to anybody, in the comic she claims to have slept with countless women (but lied about how many.)
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head:
- In Part 5, Zam tousles Boba's hair to reassure him.
- Zam rubs Boba's head affectionately in the epilogue.
- Affectionate Nickname: Zam starts calling Boba "little dude". It sticks well into Boba’s adulthood.
- An Arm and a Leg:
- When recovering from a krayt dragon attack, Zam jokingly claims it ate her leg, brandishing a stump. However, her leg is fine, she just transformed it for a prank.
- On Coruscant, as in canon, Zam loses an arm fighting Anakin and Obi-Wan. After escaping with Jango’s help, she replaces it with a prosthetic.
- Author Appeal: Many of ND Stevenson’s favorite tropes show up in this story, including shapeshifters, a villain-centered story, gay women, and Zam Wesell herself, who ND has often cited as his favorite Star Wars character (next to Mara Jade.)
- Big Damn Reunion: Zam and Boba have one near the end, complete with a Big Damn Hug.
- Brain Uploading: The "decoy clones" of both Boba and Jango have implanted memories from their original counterparts. According to Jango, "The decoys will think they're us. In any way detectable, they will be."
- Brick Joke: The first time Fennec meets Boba, she pranks him by shapeshifting her leg, saying she lost it in a battle with a Krayt Dragon. In the epilogue, the original Boba asks if she’s playing a similar joke on him, only for her to tell him that she really got her arm cut off.
- The Cameo: Obi-Wan Kenobi makes a brief, faceless appearance in a flashback to the events of Zam's assassination in Attack of the Clones.
- Call-Forward: Zam notes that Jango’s jetpack is not as invincible as Boba thinks it is, alluding to how it malfunctions in Episode II and VI.
- Darker and Edgier: Unlike the movie and to a lesser extent the series the comic is based on, the characters curse, discuss sex, and use recreational drugs.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Zam explains to Boba that she keeps up the look of a human woman, despite being a reptilian Clawdite, because she feels more aligned with it than her birth appearance. She also mentions having to take gene therapy to sustain her transformation. All in all it resembles a trans person describing their transition. The fact that ND came out as transmasculine and is transitioning makes this more obvious.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: In the epilogue, Jango, Boba, and Zam manage to exit the bounty hunting life and become a makeshift family. Meanwhile, our Boba reaffirms that he's happy with the path he's forged and remains on Tatooine to be the rightful ruler of his territory.
- Expy: Zam’s playful personality is reminiscent of Nimona from Stevenson’s own comic. Nimona herself was based on Zam Wesell, making the imported disposition back to Zam almost recursive (if still ND’s invention because Zam wasn’t particularly cheerful in her few scenes in Episode II.)
- Faking the Dead: The epilogue reveals Zam faked her death with Jango’s help, who himself faked his own death with the use of clone decoys.
- Family of Choice: Zam isn't related to Boba, but as they spend more time together and bond, she becomes part of his family along with his dad.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Zam cryptically suggests that Jango would have done anything to protect Boba — "even something really fucked up". In the next scene of the epilogue we learn that Jango commissioned clones with his and Boba’s memories to be used as live bait in case something went awry, something that Zam indicates he had a lot of reservations about.
- Foil: Zam's flippancy and playfulness contrast with Jango's more solemn demeanor.
- Framing Device: The comic occasionally circles back to the Campfire Character Exploration that took place during "The Gathering Storm".
- Implausible Deniability: In a drinking game of Never Have I Ever, Fennec boasts that she’s slept with dozens of women. Boba calls her bluff and Fennec angrily takes a swig, insisting she’s only drinking right now because she wants to.
- I Never: Fennec explains this game to Boba ("So one of us says something we haven't done, and if the other one has, they have to drink") and they play a couple rounds.
- Intimate Healing: In Part 6, Jango cuddles Zam to keep her warm while they're on a frost planet.
- Monochrome Past: While the portions of the comics that take place in the Book of Boba Fett timeline are in color, the scenes on Kamino are set in grayscale.
- Mood Whiplash: In Part 4 of the comic, Boba has a discussion with CT-0072 and the topic of twins come up, with the latter asking if he and Boba could be considered that. The comic ends with CT-0072 heading off to be examined for potential defects, stating that if he fails the test, he will be destroyed.
We never see him again. - Not What It Looks Like: Fennec walks in on Boba reuniting with Zam, who is dressed in Fennec’s clothes. She promptly leaves, thoroughly unamused.Fennec: Okay no is this a sex thing? I don’t want to know. Get it I guess.
- Shapeshifting Trickster: Zam uses her shapeshifting to do a mocking impersonation of Jango.
- Something Only They Would Say: In the epilogue, Boba realizes he's facing the real Zam when she brings up a specific detail from his childhood.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- In Attack of the Clones, Zam is killed by Jango with a poison dart to keep the Jedi from learning any information from her. Here, it is revealed that the character survived — the dart shut down her major systems and brought her vital signs down to almost nothing, so that even a Jedi would not detect her as living.
- Likewise, Jango is revealed to have lived, as the grown Fett killed on Geonosis turns out to be a decoy clone.
- Secret Test of Character: A subtle variant, but Zam's questions towards Boba in the epilogue gain an entirely new meaning when it's revealed that our Boba is a "decoy clone" — she wanted to see if he still wanted that life, or if he'd grown beyond it. Our Boba's answer indicates the latter, so he ends up passing.
- Spotting the Thread: On Tatooine, Boba realizes something is up when Fennec seemingly has an artificial arm. She turns out to be Zam Wesell in disguise.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Zam’s species are cold-blooded, so when her and Jango land on an ice planet, she ends up nearly freezing to death before Jango conserves her body heat by cuddling with her.
- That Man Is Dead: All but outright stated by Jango in the epilogue:[Our clones] can keep the ship. The armor. The name. I’m getting us all out of here alive. They’ll never find us.
- Tomato Surprise: In the epilogue, it turns out Zam faked her death, and she, Jango, and Boba fled the war while distracting Obi-Wan with a pair of clones, meaning the Boba Fett we’ve been following from Episode II all the way to The Book of Boba Fett is a clone of another preceding Boba.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Zam and Jango have some close romantically charged moments. He snuggles with her on a cold planet to preserve body heat, they discuss how Boba seems to see Zam as a mother figure, and it’s revealed they almost slept together once.
- Wham Episode: The epilogue reveals that Zam faked her death with the help of Jango. Jango then cloned both himself and Boba to throw the Jedi Order off their trail before the three of them went into hiding.
- Wham Shot: Two in the epilogue:
- "Fennec" transforming into Zam's human form reveals that she faked her own death.
- Once again returning to the events of Attack of the Clones, we watch as Slave I leaves Kamino, with Obi-Wan in hot pursuit. Pan down to reveal Jango Fett watching the whole thing unfold from the landing pad. He walks into a bedroom to find Boba and Zam talking while she recovers.
- Wham Line: To clarify the Tomato Surprise as detailed above, Jango clarifies exactly who Obi-Wan went after.Jango Fett: He took the bait. He's following the decoy clones to Geonosis.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: CT-0072's acceptance of his possible destruction and The Reveal that "our" Boba is a genetic clone of the original raise questions about what "true" individuality is when one is a clone.
